


we don't need the reaper, we're already six feet under

by slybrunette



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-06
Updated: 2010-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there is a ring on her finger, and that’s as far as it gets, or a lesson in loss and newfound dependence -- no, that's not a typo, but it should be -- from burbank to d.c.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we don't need the reaper, we're already six feet under

“For the record…”

Her palm is flat, turned outwards reflexively. “Don’t.”

He nods. “Agent Walker.”

“Agent Casey.”

 

 

-

 

 

There is a ring on her finger, and that’s as far as it gets.

Chuck smiles like if it was just her in the win category, in the face of everything else that he’s gone through in twenty-some years, it would be worth it; Ellie throws her arms around her and those might be tears in the corners of her eyes.

They don’t set a date. Plans are broken more than they’re kept, such is the life of people like them, and when Casey tells her that they’d be better off running out to city hall or Vegas there are already warning bells, not church bells, ringing in her ears.

There’s something to the way his eyes lock with hers, the way his mouth fits around the words, that feels like he’s trying to tell her something significant. There’s something to the red light on the camera that scans the room, one of many, that tells her why he’s going to the trouble of subtlety.

It ends in a rush, her plane touching down when it’s already halfway over and the damage is done. She had been in D.C., on orders, and either her or Chuck’s phone had been dropping calls before they could be answered the day before, until it just went straight to voicemail on his end. Her plane touches down and there are cars outside of her apartment, a black Suburban and _please come with us_ as if she has a choice.

She never does see him again.

(Casey sits across from her at a long table, in some nondescript building with crappy lighting and no air conditioning, and he doesn’t say anything.

It’s the last she sees of him for over a year.)

 

 

-

 

 

“You should’ve told her that.” She catches his eye, briefly; the conversation is plenty tense enough without the slew of ammunition that he keeps at his place – every place he’s ever lived – and the careful way she’s loading her gun.

“Orders are orders, Walker.”

“So you just sat back then? When it happened?”

His finger skips a key on the keyboard; he backspaces the command.

“When they took him you just sat back and said _orders are orders_?”

“You weren’t there.”

“And now we’re here.”

There is the final click of the magazine to punctuate her words, one round in the chamber, and she lays her gun down on the table in front of her.

This is what some might call misplaced anger.

Not her.

She knows there is nowhere else for it to go.

“They wanted to keep as much of Operation Bartowski together as they could.”

“Then why _didn’t_ they?”

He should have more to say, more fire to his defenses, but all he has is this calm manner with which he focuses on cameras and audio feeds, intel that’s just this side of overkill.

Something has broken him down, just a little.

They’re a good fit in that way.

“Got him.”

Her eyes flick to the monitor. “We should go.”

“Lead the way.”

 

 

-

 

 

They’ve had her number for awhile. The point was driven home when Agent Forrest came into the picture, even if she left just as quickly as she came, and it really only devolved from there. Sending her to D.C. was probably the first thing they thought to do because they _knew_ orders would be nothing but a handful of meaningless words in the face of her emotions.

She used to be an enigma to them, before Chuck. She used to keep things locked up tight. With Bryce it was easier because he knew how this worked. He understood that a great deal of having a relationship in this business involved secrecy, discretion, straight faces even with danger at every turn; he also understood the advantages.

Chuck cared too much and it rubbed off on her. It kept her too scared to shoot when it might be close, when she could hit him instead, and it made her break rules for his sake, even when they more about his sanity than his safety. Any other business and it might’ve been a gift.

It’s got him underground now. It’s got him as well hidden as her emotions used to be.

Casey, though, is purposefully impossible to understand. That doesn’t mean she can’t anticipate his reactions with some degree of regularity, fit those you can’t into the puzzle that is him; it means that she can’t always figure out why he does things.

He keeps any and all personal information to himself until it absolutely has to come out. His real identity, the people who he knew, who trained him, who he used to love. The gaps are too wide to fill in.

Except there are days when he seems unable to muster the energy or the effort with her. Days when Chuck would keep them on their toes, push Casey to a breaking point that manifested not only in the frequency of the sneers and the growls he aimed at Chuck but, at the end of the night, in the way he talked to her, like she was more than just some woman he worked with. Instead, a welcome reprieve.

Now, it’s days when things are too quiet. There is a lot more waiting when there is rarely a third party to complicate things. There is a lot more time spent in the same place, without much interruption.

It’s how her and Bryce fell together, in a way, but she doesn’t make a point of that.

 

 

-

 

 

Her surroundings keep her uncomfortable.

D.C. simply holds too many memories and the chokehold politics has on the people here doesn’t stop at the steps of the Capitol. It’s everywhere.

Everyone lies and everyone’s important, and it’s times like this where she misses not just Chuck but the people he called friends and family, who were just far enough removed from all of this to be thought of as a refreshing comfort.

 

 

-

 

 

“Here.”

Casey takes the proffered gun; she knows he already has one on him. The holster concealed beneath her gown bites into the inside of her thigh.

“You’re going to have to take that off.”

“What?”

His fingers encircle her wrist before her arm can drop down along her side, thumb scrubbing along the back of her hand as he turns it over, palm down. An engagement ring glares back.

She’d forgotten.

“Wrong cover.”

Tonight, they are only business partners. It isn’t far from the truth.

“Right.”

It takes a second too long to gather up the courage to pull it off, one smooth motion, and then he’s prying it from her fingers, depositing it in the single locked drawer in his desk.

“Safekeeping,” he tells her; she nods weakly.

 

 

-

 

 

Their first major undercover operation is a resounding failure.

It’s three weeks of whispered conversations with the water running, audio but not visual surveillance, and though she gets used to occupying the same space as him there’s still friction that she can’t quite ignore.

“Andresen couldn’t stay in the van either.”

The drinking that follows is probably requisite in some circles. They might not have blown their covers – the other agent had – but it reflects badly upon them regardless.

Her reply is wordless agreement, and when Beckman brings their ability to work together successfully into question they both fight it.

They win too.

“I figured you’d request a new partner the minute the opportunity presented itself,” he remarks, some time later.

“It would’ve been more trouble than it’s worth.”

There’s a lie behind her smile.

She’s gotten attached.

Again.

 

 

-

 

 

“Did you ever think about turning this down? After Burbank.”

“To do what? Work at a Buy More? No thanks.”

“But what about Alex?”

He won’t look at her. She strokes the slight indent on her ring finger; it’s still in the drawer and she’s calling this a much needed attempt to move on.

“I almost did,” she volunteers.

“Sure didn’t seem like you came here of your own free will.”

“I thought staying in this business might help me find him. I thought – ” the varied endings to that sentence get swallowed up in the face of the memory of the only information she’d managed to acquire; someone had found him, had tried to get him out, nameless and faceless unless you had the right clearance, and that someone is in a CIA holding facility now. It’s a lost cause; she’s known that for awhile. “I was mistaken.”

“I told them not to send you to D.C.”

“Didn’t want me either huh?”

“Before that.”

There is no emotion in his expression when she turns to look at him.

“They gave me twenty-four hours notice. I told them not to send you.”

The part of her raging inside that he _knew_ is easily subdued by the part made more curious by his statement. “Why?”

“I thought you deserved to say goodbye.”

Sarah lets his words settle between them, leaning back into the cushions and feeling some of the tension arcing away from her body, out of her neck. A hand lands on her shoulder, big and warm, and the tension returns again for different reasons.

“We were never going to win this one, Walker. Everyone’s luck runs out eventually.”

 

 

-

 

 

In the weeks and months to follow, they’re brilliant. They work in tandem without much thought, and Beckman stops second guessing their abilities.

Professionally, it might be the best they’ve ever been.

 

 

-

 

 

“And after?”

“After this?”

“Yeah.”

The quiet snort of laughter he gives makes her insides twist. “I don’t think we’re supposed to live long enough to find out.”

 

 

-

 

 

The two of them become something of legend.

It had never been a question of the Intersect’s existence, instead a question of identity. Now Chuck’s tucked away supposedly safe somewhere and rumor has spread fast since they came into town.

Their mark on this business has already been made; everything else is just simply filler, background noise to distract from an association that is forever.

 

 

-

 

 

It’s just a kiss pressed to one perpetually clean-shaven cheek.

Sarah isn’t sure if it’s a belated thank you or a reflex; she’s had to catch herself before, her body leaning towards his almost unnoticeably, the result of the sheer number of hours spent undercover in some stage of a relationship.

This is what has always gotten her in trouble.

(There is still a photo of him tied to the bed and gagged on her phone, Carina’s work, and she smiles around the memory as her back hits the wall, his body keeping her in place and a sort of desperation to his mouth that she hadn’t known he was capable of.

It’s a day and a half later, and the part of her that’s shocked by this turn of events can also connect dots that go back months ago.

Hindsight really is 20/20.)

 

 

-

 

 

People around her seem to leave, disappear, die more than they used to.

It’s not the frequency that’s changed; it’s her.

She’s noticing it more.

 

 

-

 

 

She packs a suitcase and doesn’t tell him until an hour before.

“They’re sending a replacement.”

He grunts; she thinks there was a numbering system that she wishes she’d learned. Her bag drops with a muted thud.

“It’ll only be two weeks.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to try something stupid that’s going to stick me with some rookie while you fight your way out of some holding facility.”

“That’s not why I’m doing this.”

He doesn’t ask and that’s why she tells him.

“I keep doing things for the wrong reasons. I need to figure out what the right ones are.”

“Sounds awfully philosophical of you.”

“Beckman knows. And there’s no scheduled ops coming up.”

“I get the same briefings you do.”

“I know.”

She holds his gaze for as long as she dares and then she slings her bag over her shoulder and opens the door.

“Sarah.”

The sound of her own name is sobering.

“For the record,” and she thinks that this sounds oddly familiar, an echo from her past, “I asked for you. I’m the reason you’re here.”

She swallows, then, like she’s known all along, “Yeah. You are.”

Whatever double meaning can be interpreted from her words goes unstated and she closes the door without looking back.

 

 

-

 

 

She finds the ring in her purse on the flight to Paris, four hours in.

(It never makes it onto the return flight; it isn’t deliberate but she’s learning some of the best things start that way.

She blinks back tears and tries to find promise in the clouds and the expanse of the sky.)

 

 

-

 

 

 _fin._


End file.
